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There is no shortage of festivals in Asheville, celebrating music, art, health, the environment, and/or just the wonderfully freaky nature of Asheville. Now, for the first time, we’ll be having our very own VegFest, celebrating all things vegan and animal-friendly.

Putting something this big together takes a lot of work and of course some money. Here’s the email (slightly abridged) that went out through The Asheville Vegetarians about this event:

As you know, The Asheville Vegetarians and Goat Mountain Ranch Sanctuary are planning the first ever Asheville VegFest (Sunday, August 7th).  WE NEED YOUR HELP!! We’ll be sending out a volunteer form soon but in the meantime, please note that our current estimates indicate that the festival is going to cost us nearly 7K (permits, insurance, porta potties, security, marketing materials, advertising and on and on…..). We are hopeful that rental fees from vendors and donations from sponsors will cover much of this but we do expect a shortfall. To that end we have applied for a www.vegfund.org  grant and are in contact with other organizations to whom we will apply for grant money. WE do need YOUR donations though! ….

For any donation above $20, you will receive a vegdiscount card which is good for a year of many discounts around town at various restaurants, service providers, retailers et cetera.

Asheville Vegfest  is a great opportunity to “vegucate” and “vegutain” folks near and wide  so please consider participating in any way you can but .. if you have some extra funds, they’ll go a long way in helping us pull this off!

All donations are tax deductible., checks should be written out to Goat Mountain Ranch Sanctuary and sent to:

Goat Mountain Ranch Sanctuary
1601 Newfound Rd
Leicester 28748

Alternatively, you can donate via paypal via the Goat Mountain website:  http://www.goatmountainsanctuary.org/about.html Please specify that donations are for Vegfest (donors to VegFest will receive a vegdiscount card but not a Tshirt from Goat Mountain– separate donations earmarked for Goat Mountain of $17 or more will  get you one of their cool T-Shirts).

Recently, several people have contacted me through my website, thanking me for my great video and requesting recipes. You have the wrong Vegan Girl.

I don’t have a video, unless you have seen the one of my cat walking around, or the one of me trying to play Auld Lang Syne on the mandolin.

I’m thrilled that someone out there made such a powerful video about veganism that has inspired so many people to try it. I wish I could take credit for it, but I cannot. I encourage you to look more closely at the video and see if you have the correct URL.

Update: The consensus is that www.vegan-gal.com is the site you might be looking for.

Chelsea Clinton

Everyone’s been abuzz about Chelsea Clinton’s $3 million upcoming wedding to a NY investment banker. And I could not have been less interested….until NOW that is.

Turns out that Chelsea Clinton is….VEGAN? Wow. And gluten-free to boot. Her wedding will feature a vegan, gluten-free menu with an option of grass-fed beef for those who just can’t stand to go one day without eating dead animals.

Way to go, Chelsea. Save a piece of cake for me.

Check out the full story on ecorazzi.

I’m a vegan who turned Republican. Here’s an article from a Republican who turned vegan. OK, well, almost vegan. He’ll get there.

Read the article: Rise Up, Vegan Republicans!

Yes, I know what you’re thinking – you’re either vegan or you’re not. But he is going vegan the same way I initially went vegetarian. I said I would eat vegetarian unless my dad was making me dinner. It’s called a transition period. So give the guy a break, and the benefit of the doubt, and read the article for the interesting points that he raises.

Here’s an excerpt:

Cultural anecdote two: “You can be a Republican who eats a vegan diet, but you can’t be a vegan and a Republican. Vegans value the sanctity of life, which is in conflict with Republican values.” So said a poster named Bart on vegsource.com. Bart was adding to his thread called “vegan ideas and info are a threat to corporations, hence a threat to the GOP, hence Bush allows spying on vegans.”

I hadn’t noticed spy cams at my local Whole Foods in Los Altos, Calif., so I will be sure to glance up next time I’m inspecting the arugula. President Bush’s successor, we know, is both pro-arugula and pro-Patriot act. Surely that conflict is cleaving President Obama’s very soul. Bart could be right; the spy cams might still be up there.

Jed Gillen and Olivia

Jed Gillen, author of Obligate Carnivore and more recently co-creator of Liv Films, has never cared much about who he is offending or what idiots think of him. You’ll never catch him dogmatically adhering to a set of values just because “that’s what vegans do”. And if you try to debate him when you haven’t thought everything through, he will mop the floor with you.

These personal qualities allow him to accept interviews with websites such as “Let Them Eat Meat” without fear, and they also allow all such interviews to be fantastic.

I hope vegans everywhere read this article. I know from experience how easy it is to get wrapped up in being so “vegan” all the time that it becomes hard to relate to anyone who isn’t. And if we can’t relate to anyone who isn’t already living in our happy vegan bubble, then the we will forever limit the effects of our own efforts.

Based on just the intro to this article, we learn that it’s possible to earn the respect even of someone who intentionally set out to humiliate and discredit us.

I bought his book for two reasons: to help an entry I was writing about vegans with vegan pets, and to laugh at veganism at its most extreme. A vegan who argues that we should raise our miniature carnivorous felines as herbivores? Obligate Carnivore would surely represent the fringe of the fringe.

But I was wrong. On both counts. Rather than help my entry about vegan pets, it made me rethink it entirely until I decided not to write it at all. And yes, the book did make me laugh, but not by taking veganism to higher heights of absurdity. Obligate Carnivore uses vegan cats merely as a jetée to write hilariously about veganism and life in general; it is legitimately (and intentionally) amusing.

Read the full article entitled Interview With a Vegan: Jed Gillen

Mimi Kirk, 70 years old

Peta’s sexiest vegetarian woman over 50 is actually 70 years old! Mimi Kirk went vegetarian 40 years ago, was vegan for much of that time. About a year and a half ago her blood pressure was up and her doctor wanted to put her on medication. Rather than accept that fate, she turned to a raw vegan diet.

Check out a video of Mimi on a local news station here.

Check out SuperVegan’s interview here

Mimi looks amazing, even for 50. But she’s 70.

Male Chicks

Sometime around 1991 or so, I watched a video on factory farming that changed my life drastically and permanently. Among many horrific images of animal cruelty, was the sight of hundreds of unneeded male chicks being dumped into a grinder at a layer hen hatchery. Males have no value to the egg industry so they are disposed of as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Nearly 20 years later, I see this headline in my Yahoo News: Baby chicks ground alive by poultry producer: activists. My first thought, was “Yeah, no kidding. This is news?” And my next thought was, “Wow, this is finally news!”

This practice of grinding up male chicks is surely at least as old as factory farming. The “news” part is that Mercy For Animals recently caught it on tape. Of course, it was caught on tape 20 years ago or more as well. But hey, whatever gets the information out there is fine with me.

It’s really quite amazing that this made national headlines. Usually to get an animal issue even in the local paper, you have to take your clothes off, or set something on fire. What does it say for the animals and for our society that a common practice of factory farming has now made national headlines simply because a concerned person went inside with a camera?

It’s time to cast your vote for the 2008 Veggie Awards and this year, Asheville’s Laughing Seed Cafe has been nominated for “Favorite Vegetarian Restaurant”! VegNews Magazine will publish the winners in its 2008 Holiday edition.

I’ve eaten at about half of the restaurants on the list of nominees and I can honestly say that Laughing Seed is the best of the bunch. The only one that makes it competitive is Millenium, in San Francisco. The food at Millenium is absolutely amazing but it costs about 3 times as much to eat there and the food definitely isn’t 3 times as good as Laughing Seed. If you agree that Laughing Seed is the best vegetarian restaurant around, make sure you vote!

While you’re there, I’d like to plug some absolute favorites of mine, also up for awards:

• Pigs Peace Sanctuary – “Favorite Animal Sanctuary”
• Sidecar for Pigs Peace – “Favorite Vegan Storefront”
• Flying Apron Bakery – “Favorite Bakery”

Sidecar is a volunteer-run store and all its profits are used to support Pigs Peace Sanctuary. They need the publicity and deserve all the support you can give them. Their prices also tend to be lower than the nearby Whole Foods and PCC natural foods stores.

This video is rare in that it approaches veganism from a positive and hopeful perspective. I’m not going to knock the disturbing factory farming videos with their naked violence, and ominous music since that is what brought me to live a more compassionate lifestyle.

At this point, 15 years later, I can’t bear to watch those movies anymore. It’s too painful and I don’t feel that it helps me. My life is no longer about being angry at the awfulness of the world. It’s about what I can do, as just one person, to make things better. Maybe it isn’t enough to end all suffering everywhere, but it is all I can do. Being pissed off doesn’t help anyone but myself – it’s entirely self-indulgent. Meanwhile the animals, the planet, and the people of the world go right on suffering.

It seems to me that a lot of people are reaching a similar conclusion in their own lives. I am posting this video because I believe it is more in line with this new way of living and thinking than any other video on veganism that I have seen. I hope you will watch it with an open heart and an open mind.

You know if Oprah is doing it, then half the soccer moms in the Western world are soon to follow. Oprah Winfrey is several days into a 21-day vegan cleanse. She will eat no meat, dairy, eggs, sugar, gluten, or caffeine. Good for Oprah!

Read the full story on People

This is the same woman who went to court with Howard Lyman, the “Mad Cowboy,” over her comments that information about cows being fed to other cows “stopped me cold from ever eating another burger.” Does anyone know if she stuck with that promise?

You go, Oprah!